Majidah Khirul: Learning to Trust Her Own Eye
Majidah Khirul returned to AICREATIVV as a full-time Creative Designer. The familiar office was the same, but the expectations as well as her confidence — had changed.
When Majidah Khirul walked back into AICREATIVV after finishing her internship, almost everything around her was already familiar. She knew the team, understood the workflow and had spent three months learning how the creative department operated. What felt different was the reason she was there.
She was no longer the intern.
Returning as a full-time Creative Designer meant there was less room to fall back on the idea that she was simply there to learn. Learning was still very much part of the job, but it now came alongside responsibility. There were projects to manage, decisions to make and client work that couldn't always wait for someone else to tell her what came next.
That shift felt strange at first. It was also reassuring. Majidah wasn't starting from zero in an unfamiliar creative agency in Brunei. She was returning to a place she already understood, only this time with a little more expected of her.
And gradually, a little more expected of herself too.
From Learning the Work to Owning It
As an intern, Majidah's attention was mostly on understanding how things were done. She asked questions, learned new workflows and got accustomed to the tools and processes used by the creative team. Full-time work hasn't stopped any of that, but the questions have changed.
Instead of always asking what she should do next, she now has to look at the project and work some of that out herself.
The difference became particularly noticeable when she started being trusted with more of the process rather than receiving isolated design tasks. Suddenly, she wasn't only responsible for making one visual. She had to think about whether everything felt consistent, check details before work was sent out and anticipate what a client might need next.
“There was a moment where I realised, ‘Oh, they’re actually trusting me to take care of this.’”
It was exciting. It was also slightly terrifying.
That responsibility has become an important part of Majidah's growth within design in Brunei, especially as she takes on more client-facing creative work. Projects such as Sugar Sweet have required her to think beyond whether she personally likes a design and consider whether it actually works for the brand, its audience and the way the client needs to use it.
For Majidah, that distinction has become increasingly important: “I like this” and “this works” are not always the same thing.
Simpler Doesn't Mean Less
Client feedback has played a large part in teaching her that.
There wasn't one dramatic piece of feedback that completely changed the way Majidah designs. Instead, it happened through repetition. Layouts were revised. Ideas were simplified. Things she thought needed another element sometimes became stronger when something was taken away.
Over time, she began to realise that a design doesn't have to be complicated to be good.
That lesson also changed how she reacts when revisions arrive. Earlier on, feedback could easily feel like evidence that something was wrong with her work. Now, she tries to understand what sits behind the request. Why is the client asking for this? What isn't communicating clearly enough? What is this adjustment supposed to improve?
It has helped her separate critique of the work from critique of herself.
That doesn't mean the overthinking has disappeared completely. Majidah still catches herself questioning whether something is “good enough”. The difference is that she trusts herself considerably more than she did when she first arrived.
She has also become more comfortable with something every designer eventually has to accept: the first version doesn't need to solve everything.
Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is put the idea in front of someone and allow the conversation that follows to make it better.
Finding Her Voice in the Room
That confidence has also changed how Majidah works with the rest of AICREATIVV's creative team.
As an intern, much of her relationship with the team was naturally built around learning from them. She listened, asked questions and tried to understand how more experienced creatives approached the work. Now, she finds herself participating more actively in the conversations themselves.
There wasn't one defining meeting where she suddenly realised her opinion mattered. It happened quietly. She shared an idea. Someone listened. She contributed another thought. It became part of the discussion.
The more often that happened, the easier it became to speak before she had convinced herself her idea wasn't worth mentioning.
That shift matters within a collaborative Brunei design environment because creative work rarely develops in isolation. Majidah still asks for another perspective when she needs one, but she also makes an effort to work through a problem herself first. Knowing when to do each has become part of learning how to work independently without becoming disconnected from the team.
If her intern self could see her now, Majidah thinks the surprising part wouldn't necessarily be the designs she makes.
It would be the fact that people trust her to make decisions about them.
You Learn By Doing
Looking back, one lesson from her internship has stayed with Majidah more than most: you really do learn by doing.
There were tools, workflows and approaches that felt unfamiliar when she first joined AICREATIVV. Some needed to be learned from scratch, while others required her to relearn habits she thought she already understood. At the time, not knowing could feel intimidating. After enough repetition, those same things gradually became ordinary.
It taught her not to panic when she doesn't immediately have an answer.
She can learn it.
She can ask.
She can try again.
That mindset now shapes the kind of Creative Designer Majidah hopes to become. She wants enough confidence to develop a strong point of view without becoming so attached to it that she stops listening. She wants to understand not only how to make something visually appealing, but why a particular design works, what it communicates and how it can genuinely help a client or brand.
She also doesn't want growth to mean settling into one safe way of designing.
“Creativity is fun and freedom. It would be crazy not to explore or just stay in one place.”
Majidah hopes people can eventually recognise that curiosity in her work, even when the outcome itself is simple. She wants there to be thought behind the choices, sincerity behind the execution and enough of her own personality to show that someone was genuinely interested in making it.
She is still figuring out what her style looks like. Still asking questions. Still making mistakes. Still learning from the people around her.
The difference is that she doesn't see any of those things as proof that she isn't ready anymore.
She came back to AICREATIVV no longer as the intern waiting to find out what she should do next, but as a designer learning to trust that sometimes, she already knows where to begin.
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